Researchers at the University of Cádiz and the University of Granada have discovered that diabetes favors soluble forms of beta amyloid, which are especially toxic and harmful to neuronal tissue.
The description of the beta amyloid peptide deposit process in the combined model of Alzheimer's disease and diabetes offers a new therapeutic target on which to work to slow or prevent the development of this dementia.This is one of the main ways to explore in the future.
In recent years, diabetes and prediabetes have been identified as a risk factor for dementia, but the mechanisms that mediate this relationship are not entirely known.This work clarifies one of the roads by which type 2 diabetes mellitus or its previous phase, prediabetes, contribute to cognitive deterioration and accelerate the progress of Alzheimer's disease.
Specifically, the study describes a new evolution of beta amyloid pathology in Alzheimer's patients who also suffer from prediabetes or diabetes type 2. The novelty of the results obtained is based on the detection of a different progression of the beta amyloid pathology when only suffersAlzheimer's disease and another evolution when suffering from this dementia attached to type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.In the combined model, there is a greater accumulation of the beta amyloid peptide at the vascular level, which is known as beta-amyloid angiopathy.
In addition, diabetes favors soluble forms of the beta amyloid peptide, the most toxic and harmful for neuronal tissue.This modification of beta-amyloid pathology increases oxidative stress at the neuronal and vascular level.All this facilitates the breakage of blood vessels at the brain level and enhances the typical neuronal death of Alzheimer's disease.
The investigation has been developed thanks to a sophisticated multifooting microscopy technique in live animal, which allows you to follow up on the same animal and a cerebral pathology over time."This reduces the number of animals necessary in the investigation, without a doubt a great advantage with respect to more rudimentary techniques, which triple the number of animals necessary to carry out an equivalent study," said UGR professor Juan José Ramos.
Multifooting microscopy 'in vivo' is a technique within the reach of few laboratories, capable of offering data and images that could not be achieved with other techniques."The next question we ask ourselves is: controlling the diabetic pathology, can we control or reduce the progression of beta-amyloid pathology and its consequences?" The expert has settled.